Four decades ago, at the opening
of the only other Winter Olympics held in the western United States, Andrea
Mead Lawrence skied down Papoose Peak at Squaw Valley, Calif., with the
Olympic torch in hand.

She passed it to speedskater Ken
Henry, who lighted the caldron to open the 1960 Games.

This winter, the American skiing
icon will be carrying the Olympic torch again.

Lawrence, the only U.S. skier to
win two gold medals in one Olympics (in 1952 in Oslo), was one of several
Olympians named Thursday as bearers of the torch on its two-month journey
across the United States ending in Salt Lake City in February.

"The fun story about 1960," she recalled
from California on Thursday, "is that I was pregnant with my last and fifth
child, Quentin, who happens to be living in Salt Lake City now. So I thought
that was pretty nice, and I suggested to the Olympic committee that I really
should do this part of the torch run somewhere in the Olympic Valley [Calif.],
because that's where I did it in 1960 and she [Quentin] was with me at
the time."

Lawrence, who lives in Mammoth Lakes,
Calif., said of her selection (on Quentin's nomination): "Of course, it's
an honor to be doing it. You never quite lose all your idealism about the
Olympics, even though the world has changed so dramatically -- even before
Sept. 11."

"Honored" is also the word used by
Tina Noyes, a U.S. Olympic figure skater in 1964 and 1968 who will carry
the torch in her native Boston area during the week between Christmas and
New Year's. She said, "We all know the Olympics are going to be in Salt
Lake. But it won't really touch the people here in New England until they
see the Olympic torch running through Massachusetts. That's when it really
brings the Olympics to everyone."

Noyes, who was nominated by her fiance,
has had past experience with Olympic torches. In 1984, when an Olympic
soccer competition was held at Harvard Stadium, she participated in a smaller-scale
torch run in Cambridge, Mass. Then, in 1996, she did a leg of the Atlanta
torch run in Boston, where she handed the torch to wheelchair-bound Travis
Roy, the young hockey player who was injured in his first game at Boston
University.

"That was quite a moment for me,
one I will honestly never forget," Noyes said.

Two former Winter Olympic skiers
will have assistance when they help transport the torch through Colorado
on the homestretch to Utah.

Dick Durrance, who competed in the
1936 Winter Olympics and is recognized as one of America's ski-racing pioneers,
will carry the torch near his hometown of Carbondale, "but since I walk
with a cane, I think they're going to put me in a buggy or something."
Asked if he still skis, Durrance said, "I'm 87, so I don't run around like
crazy."

Jimmie Heuga, who won a bronze medal
in the slalom in the 1964 Olympics, will be in a wheelchair when he gets
his turn with the torch near Vail. Heuga was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis
30 years ago, and two years ago, he moved into an assisted-living facility
near Boulder, because, he said, "I need a lot of help."

Heuga said he has never participated
in a torch relay before. Asked about the chance to do it this time, he
said, "I'd be honored."